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It is possible to find very pretty parts of Atlanta, even downtown. We went out for a little afternoon walk and let Walt loose in Grant Park. We will be doing it again. He loves having the freedom to roam where he pleases!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the loneliness of motherhood. I think it took me about a year to stop feeling lonely all the time (even though I had another person constantly attached to me and a great partner!). It was one of those things that took me by surprise as a new mother. I was just so excited to be pregnant and having a baby, and I knew things would change in my life, but I just wasn’t prepared.

It’s hard to stay connected. At first, people are so excited for you and they want to stop by and hang out with the cuddly new baby. This seems to always happen when the baby is sleeping, so your well-meaning visitors keep you awake and then leave when the baby wakes up and needs to eat, needs a diaper change, needs to cry… and then the visitors stop coming. They resume with their busy lives, and you’re left with a very demanding — albeit very cute — very small human who doesn’t sleep very much.

Day in and day out, they need you to hold them, nurse them, burp them, walk them, interest them, sleep them, etc. etc. etc. until you forget to go outside, even to step out on the front porch. At least that was me for a little while. And just when you’re ready to go outside for a nice walk, it’s either raining or too hot or too cold or too whatever (and Walt hated the stroller too, of course).

Most of my friends don’t have children. The ones that do are full-time working mothers. The few moms I know at home live far enough away that going out during the brief time between feedings and naps seemed like more effort than it was worth. Or their kids were on different nap schedules than Walt, once he had a “schedule.” Add to that that Walter cried like he was being tortured when he was in the car for the first couple months — or if he was held by anyone else besides me or Dave — and I was one isolated mama.

The mommy wars don’t add any pleasantness to the choices you make either. Working moms think stay at home moms are always judging them and looking down at them, and stay at home moms think working moms do the same thing to them too. So where does that leave us? One more island of loneliness on which to perch.

Luckily, there was a light at the end of tunnel (at least for your garden variety lonely), just like there’s a full night’s sleep at the end of the newborn tunnel. Walt and I get out and about, do chores, go to play dates and story times, and we can leave the house in record time if we need to. We still have our nursing relationship, but as he gets older that changes too, into something a little more convenient for both of us (though I hate associating that word). I see my friends more often (with and without baby), and I have a full calendar of work and volunteer stuff to do.

Somehow, enough time will pass that I will want to do this all over again. And I have no idea how two kids will make that loneliness feel. Maybe it won’t be as intense. Maybe it’ll be worse. All I know is being a mama has been the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done with my life. And while every mom probably understands at least a little bit of how I’ve felt, it also seems like there are few people I’ve been able to talk to about this.

It’s been a big week for Atlanta. An unanticipated announcement (at least to most of us) that the Braves will be moving from Downtown to Cobb County led to a fury of comments on social media. It’s been fun to read everyone’s reactions.

When I first heard the news I was driving with Walter, so I waited until we got to our destination and immediately texted David. It went something like this: “Remember how we didn’t know when we were going to try to move out of the city or where we would go? Well, we’re going to move in three years to Cobb County cause the Braves are leaving Turner Field.”

And as I send this text I get one from him that says, “It’s official. We’re moving to Cobb County in 2017 because the Braves are moving their stadium there.”

Great, married minds think alike.

I love those upper box seats: great view of the game and the city.

I’m still not really sure how I feel about the move. My husband bought our house before he met me, and part of the reason for his location choice was its proximity to Turner Field. While we’ve been discussing moving OTP (or at least farther north) sometime in the future for the whole yard, tree, safety experience for our kids, I’ve also been constantly reminded that the more we live here, the more our life is embedded downtown. We’re near Dave’s work, our church, our friends, our community, our ballpark… the one thing is our parents all live 30 minutes north. I was hoping that the city would finally develop the land around Turner Field, turn the parking lots into parking decks, and make that part of the city (that’s about 3 miles from us) into a thriving metropolis. Think what it would do to our property value!

When I contemplate moving up 75, that sounds great too, except for the lack of public transportation. Dave’s work is next door to a Marta station on the main line, so if we moved OTP and were near a station up north, the commute wouldn’t be too bad. But I absolutely cannot stand the idea that it would take him 1-2 hours to get home again. Not with kids and family dinners to think about.

I think this going to happen, whether we like it or not, so we all better wrap our minds around it. I just hope they fix the Marta situation. We’ve had some great family memories at Turner Field, but we’re Braves’ fans at heart, and we’re going to stay that way. Go Bravos!

I’ve always been a fan of holiday markets, craft fairs, festivals, etc. Tomorrow is the opening of the Holiday Artist Market at the Spruill Gallery in Dunwoody that my BFF Jen$ organizes, and for the first time ever, my stuff will be on sale! They only have local artists participate, there are a lot of awesome crafts, and when I started my sewing Jen asked if I wanted to be in the market. Of course I couldn’t turn that down!

I am very excited to see how interested people are in my wares. It will be a good venue to test pricing and demand, if any. I am proud that things I have made will be on sale, and I only hope this is the beginning.

Opening is Thursday night from 6-9pm, light refreshments provided.
See you there!

One of the first things Dave and I bonded over when we met was our mutual love of the book Ender’s Game and the rest of the series. So it was only natural that we wanted to go see the movie when it came out. Last night presented us with the opportunity.

I’ve only seen two movies in the theaters since Walt was born, Anna Karenina and Before Midnight, both with Jason at Tara. David has gone to see two of his movies on his own as well. Needless to say, we don’t get to the theater much, not with Netflix and the soaring prices of a ticket. However, Phipps Plaza, the king of all Atlanta malls, makes it incredibly worth it.

I went up to get our tickets and the guy asked me to pick our seats. I said, “What?” and he patiently, as if to a stupid child, asked me to pick where we would like to sit. I, of course, was unable to do so without David’s help, because I was too confused that this theater only had six rows and I had to sit in an assigned seat like on an airplane. Well, it turned out it’s first class.

The seats recline almost 180 degrees and they’re large and comfy with cup holders and you can pull the armrest out of your way so you can snuggle with your partner (if you want) and it was almost weird being out in public acting like you’re on the couch at home but David said, “they have to think of some way to get you to go out.” And with the bar at the entrance this might be my new favorite activity.

The movie was good for a book adaptation, and my biggest complaints were the age of the kids (they’re 6 in the book and 12 in the movie) and the hurried and oversimplified nature of the plot. But that’s why books will almost always win out over their movie counterparts, in my opinion. It was hard to care though when the screen and the seats were that big.

Who wants to go to a movie? Or help me pick out a new couch for our living room?